The European Commission launched the EU’s digital finance platform on Friday 8 April.
Announced in the September 2020 Digital Finance Strategy, this new website is designed to establish a dialogue between innovative financial companies and supervisory authorities. Its main objectives are to overcome the fragmentation of digital financial services and to support their expansion across the single market.
“It is a bit of a departure for the Commission, it is different from our standard websites. And that is mainly because it is designed to encourage interaction”, said Mairead McGuinness, European Commissioner for Financial Services.
The platform will consist of two elements: (1) an observatory with interactive features such as a map of fintechs, events, and a section where users can share relevant research papers; (2) a gateway that will serve as a single point of access to supervisory authorities, with information on national innovation centres, regulatory sandboxes, and licence requirements.
This part of the platform also hosts cross-border testing functionalities, to allow companies to involve several national authorities in the testing of new products or applications.
In a second phase, to be launched in 2023, new features are expected to be added to the EU Digital Finance Platform, based on user feedback.
“We are already working on the second phase of the platform, preparing to improve existing functionalities and indeed, to add new ones”, Mrs McGuinness said. She added: “One idea we are discussing with national supervisors and other market participants is that of a Data Hub”.
To consult the platform: https://aeur.eu/f/17x (Original version in French by Anne Damiani)